Maximum High
by AustinLover27
Summary: Maximum, a regular teenage girl, moves to Salem, Oregon to start a new life. Cinder, a teenage Frakenmonster, finally gets to socialize with other teens. How will these two girls' lives meet? Find out. Rated K   because it's based off a kids' book.
1. Newfound Fabulousness

_Maximum Ride_

**CHAPTER ONE**

NEWFOUND

FABULOUSNESS

The fourteen-hour drive from Beverly Hills, California, to Salem, Oregon, had been total Gitmo. It went from road trip to guilt trip in less that a minute. And the torture didn't let up for nine hundred miles. Faking sleep was Max Ride's only escape.

"Welcome to _bOre-egon_," her younger sister mumbled as they crossed the state line. "Or should I call it _snOre-egon_? How about

_abOre-egon_? Or maybe-"

"That's enough, Ella!" her father snapped from the driver's seat of their new BMW diesel SUV. Green in both color and fuel efficiency, it was one of the many overtures her parents had taken to show the locals that Jeb Batchelder and Valencia

Martinez were more than just great-looking wealthy transplants from the 90210.

The thirty-six preshipped UPS boxes filled with kayaks, sailboats, fishing poles, canteens, instructional wine-tasting DVDs, organic trail mix, camping gear, bear traps, walkie-talkies, crampons, ice picks, cobra hammers, adzes, skis, boots, poles, snowboards, helmets, Burton outerwear, and flannel underwear were just a few more.

But Ella's comments became even louder when it started to rain. "Ahhhhhh, August in _pOre-egon_!" Ella sniffed. "Ain't it grand?' An eye roll followed. Max didn't have to see it to know. Still, she peeked out through barely opened lids to confirm.

"Ugggggh!" Ella kicked the back of her mother's seat indignantly. Then she blew her nose and whipped the moist tissue at Max's shoulder. Max's heart beat faster, but she managed to hold still. It was easier than fighting back.

"I don't get it," Ella continued. "Max survived fifteen years breathing smog. One more won't kill her. She could wear a mask. People could sign it, like they sign casts. Maybe it would inspire a whole line of accessories for asthmatics. Like inhalers on necklaces and-"

"Enough, Ella." Valencia sighed, obviously exhausted from the month long debate.

"But next September I'll be in ," Ella pressed, not used to losing an argument. She was blond, perfectly proportioned, and used

to getting what she wanted. "You couldn't wait one more year to move?"

"This move will be good for all of us. It's not just about your sister's asthma. Merston High is one of Oregon's top schools. Plus, it's about connecting with nature and getting away from all that Beverly Hills superficiality."

Max smiled to herself. Her father, Jeb, was celebrated plastic surgeon, and her mother had been a personal shopper to the stars. Superficiality was their master. They were its zombies. Still, Max appreciated her mother's ongoing effort to keep Ella from blaming her for the move. Even though it kind of _was_ her fault.

In a family of genetically perfect human beings, Max Ride was an anomaly. A rarity. An oddity. Abnormal.

Jeb had been blessed with Italian good looks despite his SoCal roots. The flicker in his black eyes was like sunshine on a lake.

His smile warmed like cashmere, and his perma-tan had done zero damage to his forty-six-year-old skin. With just the right stubble-to-hair-gel ratio, he had as many male patients as female ones. Each one hoped to peel off the bandages and look ageless... just like Jeb.

Valencia was forty-two but, thanks to her husband, her blemish-free skin had been nipped and tucked long before she needed the procedures. She seemed to have one pedicure foot off the human development chart and into the next stage of evolution- a stage that defied gravity and ceased to age her past thirty-four. With wavy shoulder-length auburn hair, aqua blue eyes, and lips so naturally puffed they needed no collagen, Valencia could have modeled had she not been so petite. Everyone said so. At any rate, she swore personal shopping always would have been her career choice, _even if _Jeb had given her calf extensions.

Lucky Ella was a combination of both of her parents. Like an alpha predator, she had filled up on the good stuff, leaving scraps for the next offspring in line. While the petite frame she inherited from her mother hurt her potential modeling career, it did wonders for her wardrobe, which was bursting with hand-me-downs that included everything from Gap to Gucci (but mostly Gucci). She had Valencia's blue-green eyes and Jeb's sunny sparkle, Jeb's tan and Valencia's airbrushed complexion. Her cheekbones ascended like marble banisters. And her long hair, which happily assumed the texture of straight or wavy, was the color of butter drizzled with melted toffee. Ella's friends (and their mothers) would snap photos of her square jaw, strong chin, or straight nose and give them to Jeb with hopes that his hands could work the same miracles his DNA once did.

And, of course, they did.

Even with Max.

Convinced the wrong family had taken her home from the hospital, Max placed little value on physical appearance. What was the point? Her chin was scant, her teeth were fanglike, and her hair was flat blood red. No highlights. No lowlights. No butter and toffee drizzle. Just flat blood red. Her eyes, while fully functional, were as steel gray and narrow as a skeptical cat's. Not that anyone noticed her eyes. Her nose took center stage. Composed of two bumps and a sharp drop-off, it looked like a camel in downward-facing dog.

Not that it mattered. As far as Max was concerned, the ability to sing was her best asset. Music teachers had gushed over her pitch-perfect voice. Clear, angelic, and haunting, it had a mesmerizing effect on everyone who heard it, and teary audiences would spring to their feet after every recital. Unfortunately, by the time she turned eight, asthma had taken center stage and stolen the show.

Once Max started middle school, Jeb offered to operate. But Max refused. A new nose wouldn't cure the asthma, so why bother? All she had to do was hold out until high school, and things would change. Girls would be less superficial. Boys would be more mature. And academia would reign supreme.

_Ha!_

Things got worse when Max started Beverly Hills High. Girls called her Smax because of her giant nose and boys didn't call her anything at all. They didn't even look at her. By Thanksgiving she was practically invisible. If it weren't for her incessant wheezing and inhaler sucking, no one would have known she was alive.

Jeb couldn't stand to see his daughter- who was "full of symmetric potential -suffer any further. That Christmas, he told Max that Santa got a new form of rhinoplasty approved, promising to open up airways and alleviate asthma. Maybe she'd be able to sing again.

"How wonderful!" Valencia placed her small hands together in prayer and then lifted her eyes toward the skylight gratitude.

"No more Rudolph the big-nosed reindeer," Ella joked.

"This is about her health, not her looks, Ella," scolded Jeb, obviously trying to meet Max halfway.

"Wow! Amazing." Max hugged her father in thanks, even though she wasn't sure noses had anything to do with restricted bronchi. But pretending to believe his explanation gave her _some_ hope. And it was easier than admitting that her family was embarrassed by her face.

Over Christmas break, Max underwent surgery. She woke up to find she had a thin, Jessica Biel nose, and dental vaneers instead of almost-fangs. By the end of recovery period, she had lost five pounds and gained access to her mother's Gap to Gucci (but mostly Gucci) hand-me-downs. Unfortunately, she still couldn't sing.

Back at Beverly Hills High, the girls were welcoming, the boys were gawking, and hummingbirds seemed to fly a little closer. She found a level of acceptance she never dreamed possible.

But none of this newfound fabulousness made Max any happier. Instead of flaunting and flirting, she spent her free time buried under the covers feeling like her sister's metallic Tory Burch tote beautiful and shiny on the surface but a terrible mess on the inside. _How dare they act nice just because I'm pretty! I'm the same person I've always been!_

By summer, Max had completely withdrawn. She dressed in baggy clothes, never brushed her hair, and accessorized solely by clipping an inhaler to her belt loops.

During the Martinez/Batchelders' annual Fourth of July barbecue (where she used to sing the national anthem), Max had a severe asthma attack that landed her in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. In the waiting room, Valencia anxiously flipped through a travel magazine and stopped at a lush photograph of Oregon, claiming she could smell the fresh air just by looking at it. When Max was released, her parents told her they were moving.

And for the first time ever, a smile spread across her face.

"Helloooooo, _adOre-_egon!" she said to herself as the green BMW forged ahead

Then lulled by the rhythmic swish of the windshield wipers and the tapping of falling rain, Max drifted off to sleep.

This time for real.

**AN: My first Maximum Ride crossover. I'm only redoing the first two chapters, unless I get the book. Next up, is an OC of mine. Please don't flame me. I'm trying to get better. Please review and review!**


	2. Life's A Stich

**CHAPTER TWO**

LIFE'S A STITCH

The sun was finally up. Robins and sparrows were chirping their usual mourning playlists. Outside Cinder's frosted bedroom window, kids on bikes began ringing their bells and circling the Radcliffe Way cul-de-sac. The neighborhood was awake. She could finally blast Lady Gaga.

_"I can see myself in the movies, with my picture in the city lights..."_

More than anything, Cinder wanted to bop her head to "The Fame." No. Wait. That wasn't entirely true. What she _really_ wanted to do was jump up on her metal bed, kick the fleece-coated electromagnetic blankets to the polished concrete, swing her hair, wave her arms, shake her booty, _and_ bop her head to "The Fame." But disrupting the flow of electricity before the charge was complete could lead to memory loss, fainting spells, or even a coma. The plus side, however, was never needing to plug in her iPod touch. As long as it was near Cinder's body, the device's battery had more juice than Tropicana.

Luxuriating in her morning infusion, she lay supine with a tangle of black and red wires clamped to her neck bolts. While the last electric currents ricocheted through Cinder's body, she leafed through the latest issue of _Seventeen_magazine. Careful not to smudge her hardening In the Navy nail polish, she searched the models' smooth, odd-colored necks for metal rivets, wondering how they managed to "amp" without them.

As soon as Carmen Electra (the name she'd given the amp machine, because its technical name was too hard to pronounce) shut down, Cinder delighted in the itchy tingle of her thimble-size neck bolts when they started to cool. Feeling invigorated, she pressed her pert nose into the magazine and took a long sniff of the enclosed Miss Dior Cherie perfume sample.

"You like?" she asked, waving it in front of the Glitterati. Five white rats stood on their pink hind feet and scratched the glass wall of their cage. A flurry of nontoxic multicolored glitter slid off their backs like snow from an awning.

Cinder took one more sniff. "Me to." She waved the folded paper through the cold formaldehyde-laced air and got up to light her vanilla-scented candles. The vinegary chemical odor of the solution was seeping into her hair and conditioner.

"Do I smell vanilla?" her dad asked as he rapped on the closed door.

Cinder shut off her music. "Yesssss!" she trilled, ignoring his pretending-to-be-annoyed tone- a tone he'd been using since Cinder transformed his lab into a "Fab." She heard it when she glammed up the laboratory rats, began storing lip gloss and hair accessories in his breakers, and glued Justin Bieber's face to the skeleton. But she knows her dad didn't really mind. It was her bedroom now too. And besides, if he really cared, he wouldn't refer to her as-

"How is Daddy's perfect little girl?" Mark Stein knocked again and then opened the door. Cinder's mother followed Mark into the room.

Mark was swinging leather duffel and wearing a black Adidas tracksuit and his favorite brown UGG slippers with a hole in one toe.

"Worn and old, just like Laura," he'd say when Cinder made fun of them, and then his wife would swat him on the arm. But Cinder knew he was just joking, because Laura was the type of woman you wished was in a magazine just so you could stare at her emerald-colored eyes and shiny red hair without being called a stalker or a freak.

Her father, however, had more of an Arnold Schwarzenegger thing going on, as if his chiseled features had been stretched to cover his square head. People probably wanted to stare at him too but were afraid of his six-foot-four frame and super-squinty expression. But his squints didn't mean he was angry. They meant he was thinking. And being a mad scientist, he was always thinking...At least that's how Laura explained it.

"Can we talk to you for a minute, sweetie?" Laura asked in a singsong way that mimicked the swooshing hem of her black crepe sundress. Her voice was so delicate that people were shocked when they heard it coming from a six-foot-tall woman.

Laura and Mark walked across the polished concrete floor holding hands, a united front, as always. But this time, traces of concern lay beneath their proud grins.

"Have a seat, dear." Laura gestured to the pillow-covered ruby-red Moroccan chaise Cinder had ordered online from Ikea. In the far corner of the Fab, along with her sticker-covered desk, her flat-screen Sony, and a rainbow of colorful wardrobes stuffed with Internet buys, the lounge faced the only window in the room. Even though that window had been frosted for privacy, it gave Cinder a glimpse into the real world- or at least the promise of one.

Cinder padded across the fluffy pink sheepskin path from her bed to the lounge, silently fearing that her parents had seen her latest charges from iTunes. Nervous, she pulled on the track of fine black stitches the held her head in place.

"Don't pull," Mark insisted, lowering himself onto the chaise. The birch frame creaked in protest. "There's nothing to be nervous about. We just want to talk to you." He placed the leather duffel by his feet.

Laura tapped the empty cushion beside her, and then fussed with her signature black muslin scarf. But Cinder, fearing a lecture on the value of a dollar, tightened her silky black Harajuku Lovers robe and chose to sit on the pink rug instead.

"What's up?" she asked, smiling and trying to sound as if she hadn't just spent $59.99 for a season pass of _Gossip Girl_.

"Change is in the air." Mark rubbed his hands together and inhaled deeply, as if gearing up to tackle a hike up Mount Hood.

_No more credit cards?_Cinder speculated with dread.

Laura nodded and forced another smile, her dark purple painted lips holding tight to each other. She looked at her husband, urging him to continue, but he widened his dark eyes to communicate that he didn't know what to say.

Cinder shifted uncomfortably on the rug. She had never seen her parents at such loss for words. She fast-forwarded through her recent purchases, hoping to figure out which item had tipped them over the edge. _Season pass of_Gossip Girl, _orange blossom room spray, striped_Hot Sox _with cute toe holes, magazine subscriptions for_US weekly, Seventeen, Teen Vogue, Cosmo-Girl, _horoscope app, numerology app, dream interpreter app, Morrocanoil hair de-frizzer, Current/Elliott boyfriend jeans..._

Nothing too major. Still, the anticipation was making her neck bolts spark.

"Relax, dear." Laura leaned forward and smoothed her hand over Cinder's short red hair. The soothing gesture stopped the energy leak but did nothing for her insides. They were still popping and hissing like the Fourth of July. Her parents were the only people Bloom knew. Her parents were her best friends and mentors. Disappointing them meant disappointing the entire world.

Mark took another deep breath, and then exhaled as he made his announcement. "The summer is over. Your mother and I have to go back to teaching science and anatomy at the university. We can't home school you anymore." He jiggled his ankle restlessly.

"Huh?' Cinder knit her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. _What can this possibly have to do with shopping?_

Laura placed an _I'll-take-it-from-here_ hand on Mark's knee, then cleared her throat. "What your father is trying to say is that you fifteen days old. On each of those days, he implanted a year's worth of knowledge into your brain: math, science, history, geography, languages, technology, art, music, movies, songs, trends, expressions, social, convention, manners, emotional depth, maturity, discipline, free will, muscle coordination, speech coordination, sense recognition, depth perception, ambition, and even a small appetite. You have it all!"

Cinder nodded her head, wondering when the shopping part was coming.

"So, now that you're a beautiful, smart teenage girl, you're ready for..." Laura sniffed back a tear. She looked over at Mark, who nodded, urging her to continue. Licking her lips and exhaling, she managed to work up one last smile, then-

Cinder sparked. This was taking longer than ground shipping.

Finally Laura blurted, "Normie school." She said it like _nor-mee_.

"What's 'normie'?" Cinder asked, fearing the answer. _Is that some kind of rehab program for shopaholics?_

"A normie is someone with common physical traits," Mark explained.

"Like..." Laura picked up an issue of _Teen Vogue_ from the orange-lacquered side table and opened it to a random page. "Like them."

She tapped an H&M ad featuring three girls in bras and hot pants- a blond, a brunette, and a red head. They all had straight hair. "Am I a normie?" Cinder asked, feeling just as proud as the beaming models.

Laura shook her head from side to side.

"Why? Because my hair is curly?" Cinder asked. This was the most confusing lesson of all.

"No, not because your hair is curly," Mark said through a frustrated smirk. "Because I built you."

"Didn't everyone's parents 'build' them?" Cinder made air quotes. "You know, technically speaking."

Laura raised a dark eyebrow. Her daughter had a point.

"Yes, but I built you in the literal way," Mark explained. "In this lab. From perfect body parts that I made with my hands. I programmed your brain full of information, stitched you together, and put bolts on the sides of your neck so you could get charged. You have no real need for food, other than enjoyment. And, Cinder, because you have no blood, well, your skin, it's...its _green_."

Cinder looked at her hands as if for the first time. They were the color of mint chocolate chip ice cream, just like the rest of her.

"I know," she giggled. "Isn't it voltage?"

"It is." Mark chuckled. "That's why you're so special. No other student at your new school was made like that. Just you."

"You mean the school will have other people in it?" Cinder looked around the Fab, the only room she'd ever truly known.

Cinder searched their moist eyes, wondering if this was really happening. Were they really going to just cut her loose? Drop her in a school full of straight-haired normies and expect her to fend for herself? Did they really have the heart to walk away from her education so they could teach lecture halls full of perfect strangers instead?

Despite their quivering lips and salt-stained cheeks, it seemed that they actually were. Suddenly, a feeling that could only be measured on the Richter scale rumbled through Cinder's belly. It climbed up her chest, shot through her throat, and exploded right out of her mouth:

**"VOLTAGE!"**


End file.
